An allegory: The Old Ballroom

Life overall feels... decadent. Like coming back to an old ballroom months before it's demolished

It's an old ballroom, that once sat proudly in the street, its rooms the place of many glamorous nights, its lights shining the most radical of new fads. Music of great energy blasted from the scenario, where behind them people danced, socialised, drank & had fun, enjoying this nice place that represented the very best of the avant-gardes.

But it's far from what it used to be far before you were born. It's existence being now a mere shadow of it's once grand elegance.

It's still open... somehow, although crearly barely maintained at all. The floor that once shined the ceiling lights with pride, now remain full of grime & dirt, & at some places, cracked & not replaced. The same songs come off the scenario, but not anymore from the live ban that birthed them, they instead play deafly from worn-out speakers left there on the floor, now a distant sad remainder from what it once was.

The once colorful & full corridors that amalgamated all kinds of people, are now still there, faded by the passage of many suns & almost empty, save for a person or two smoking on a corner, laying on the rotting woodpannelled-walls.

The then marvelously clean bathrooms where casual light-hearted conversations would erupt, being an indescriptible mess of mold, hair & a distinct smell of bodyly fluids choking the atmosphere.

And yet, in spite of all the glaring signs of danger, people keep coming back. 

They talk of the music as if it had come yesterday, of the people deep underground like they were still breathing, & acting like nothing outside has gone wrong. They ever more desperately try to relive the glory of younger years by tuning a blind eye to the inflated  wood, the corroded steel & the falling stones. 

"What do you mean the place is run-down? This place is the best we've got. It has always been, still is & will always be & nothing needs to change" says a man. And frankly he's not wrong.

This rotting corpse of a world long dissappeared, saved from demolition perhaps by mere inertia with the appearence of cabaret's, cinemas, highways & the internet; is now an tired safeheaven for those seeking to ignore today's problems & live yesterdays glory. 

But soon, no one knows when, the cracks left by carelessness will give in, the wood will burst from the humid heat of winter, the stone will be undone by the great acid storms & finally, the ballroom & the people inside will be no more. 

But how can you blame them, after all, we are living off of our own ruins.